El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera is an animated series produced for Nickelodeon and Nicktoons Network. The first screening of the show was on 19 January 2007 in the first ever Nickelodeon Creative Summit held in San Juan, Puerto Rico as a special treat for the 60 exclusive attendees (The Summit was led by 4 of the main branch of Nickelodeon). Later sneak peeks aired on February 19th with the series television debut on March 3, 2007, for both networks. It premiered on the Canadian YTV on May 4, 2007.

Contents

Premise

Set in the fictional crime-ridden Mexican town of Miracle City, El Tigre follows the adventures of Manny Rivera, a regular 13-year-old boy who is having trouble using his powers as El Tigre. He wants to be good, but being bad is much more fun in his vision. His father, a superhero known as White Pantera, wants Manny to grow up to be good and fight evil, but Manny's Grandpapi, a supervillain known as Puma Loco, thinks Manny should go to the dark side.

Origin

El Tigre was created by a husband-and-wife team named Jorge Gutierrez and Sandra Equihua along with others who were employed to make the show. The couple made the project from experiences they had when they were younger. Manny Rivera is based on Jorge's young self and Frida Suárez is based on Sandra's. Many things known of the show were based on actual events or parts in Jorge's life. His father was an artist (which was viewed as good) and his grandfather was a general in the military (which was viewed as evil). That idea was exaggerated to the idea of Super Heroes and Villains. The city Miracle City is based on Mexico City, where Jorge grew up.

Sandra Equihua, Character Designer for "El Tigre" for the episode "Enter the Cuervo"

2008 Annie Awards

Writing in an Animated Television Production or Short Form

Unknown

Scott Kreamer – El Tigre “Mustache Love” – Nickelodeon

2008 Annie Awards

Character Design in an Animated Television Production or Short Form

Unknown

Jorge Gutierrez – El Tigre “The Good, The Bad, The Tigre”

El Tigre's Decision of Destiny

On 25 January 2008, Nickelodeon allowed viewers to vote on an ending deciding El Tigre's fate on a brand-new episode that premiered on the same day.[1] The ending chosen was hero, in which he defeated Django and Sartana. Had evil been chosen he would have helped Django and Sartana conquer the world, but turned against them to take the empire for himself.

McDonald's Happy Meal

Video Game Appearances

El Tigre has been licensed in two video games so far.
He has his own game, and he is featured in the Nintendo DS version of Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots. El Tigre has its own game at Nick Arcade: Festival De Las Piñatas and El Tigre is a playable character in Nick Arcade's Nicktoons HoverZone along with SpongeBob, Patrick, Danny Phantom, Timmy Turner and Tak.

Trivia

The Villain Sartana of the Dead is an homage to Carlos Santana, with a visual resemblance of La Catrina, by Mexican engraver Jose Guadalupe Posada.

Zoe's last name Aves, is a reference for another name for birds of the same name. "Aves" means "birds" in Spanish.

Black Cuervo's costume looks like the uniform of the main characters from the anime series Kagaku Ninjatai Gatchaman.

Frida's tracksuit in Fool's Goal is the same as the one worn by the Bride (Uma Thurman's character) in Kill Bill and Bruce Lee in "Game of Death".

Running gags in Mother of all Tigres: 1: When they show the flashback in "Mother of all Tigres" it shows Maria kissing Manny the age he is now with his scar, but after Maria leaves and Grandpapi moves in, it shows Manny at a younger age, 1. Manny interrupting Maria to show her a new place in the city. 2: Maria randomly speaking of facts, pulls out a book, then says "Its a fact", 3: Whenever Manny says something good about the evil place, Granpapi says "I'll say!". 4: On the cover of one of Maria's albums it shows Maria, Manny, and a goat walking across the road, similar to The Beatles hit album Abbey Road. And 5: The two plumbers are dressed similarly to Mario and Luigi.

When Manny is working in the office in Mustache Kid, on his calendar it has a picture of an orange cat that says "No me gusta Mondays" which translated means "I don't like Mondays" which is an allusion of the popular cartoon cat "Garfield".

In Dia de Los Malos, Papi yells at Rodolfo for reading off the invitation to the Celebration of Heroes. Then Rodolfo comes out of the bathroom with a comb in his hand and obviously combing something as he mockingly says "You can't ruin my mood." But White Pantera already has his mask on, so what is he combing? His mask?

In The Ballad of Frida Suarez marks the second appearance of Zebra Donkey.

When Don Baffi said "I'll get you, El Tigre, and your little 'stache, too!". This is a play on the Wicked Witch of the West's "I'll get you, and your little dog, too" line from The Wizard of Oz.

In Eye Caramba, when the Flock of Fury is spying on Rodolfo, in some shots they see basically what he is seeing. But in other shots they actually see Rodolfo and the glass eye as if something else was spying on him.

In Sole of a Hero when Manny says, "You're Super Macho!" to his Dad, it is a reference, to Jorge Guiterrez', one of the creators of the show nickname, "Super Macho". As known on his website, which is named after the show's company, Mexopolis.

There has been a running gag in the title cards, with one character standing closer to the image, showing only its feet and legs, while the other stands far in the background. So far, this is seen in Sole of a Hero, Fistful of Collars, and The Mother Of All Tigres. A similar gag is used in Clash of the Titan, with the Titanium Titan in the form and El Tigre in the background, but the difference is that the Titan is shown entirely instead of feet and legs.

There are a few references to Spaghetti Westerns within the show, Sartana and Django are both the names of heroes in a series of Italian Westerns. Both Leone middle school and Sergio are named after director Sergio Leone the latter being an Italian kid who dresses up like a cowboy. Furthermore the episodes Fistful of Collars, and a A Fistful of Nickels takes its title from Fistful of Dollars, and A Fistful of Dynamite. Also it is noted that the Boktai series has a protagonist named Django and a brother named Sabata also named after spaghetti western film protagonists.

Manny's name may be based on the name of Tony Montana's best friend Manny Rivera from the Brian de Palma movie, Scarface.

In El Tigre, El Jefe, toward the end of the episode, Remy from Street Fighter III can be seen in the crowd. Plus, Chun-Li and Ryu can be seen in a few scenes of several episodes.

When El Mal Verde falls into El Oso after fighting Manny in the first round, if you look closely Black Cuervo can be seen in the crowd but she never competes or is seen throughout the rest of the episode. Later in the episode, Black Cuervo is seen hanging in the volcano on the background.

Running Gag of Sartana mentioning villains then White Pantera followed by him yelling "Black Pantera" as his cover name.

White Pantera's "Power Punch Pick" was originally written as a punch, not a kick. After the storyboard pitch, it became obvious that our boot themed hero should have a kick as his big move.

All the villains in this show have red eyes, except for Granpapi and Manny because Granpapi has yellow glasses on so we really can't see, and Manny is only part-villain.

The full name of Manny Rivera (Manuel Pablo Gutierrez O'Brien Equihua Rivera) is related to the surnames of the creators of the series, for example: the last name of Gutierrez in the name of the character belongs to Jorge R. Gutiérrez and while Equihua belongs to Sandra Equihua.

In The Return of Plata Peligrosa, when White Pantera paints Plata Peligrosa, it was the title card picture of A Mother's Glove.

Manny lives on a house on the top of a big building in Miracle City. The building name is Casa Del Macho. Manny's mom's former mansion was named Casa Del Mariachi.

Some of the villains have secret identities and they make sure no one else finds out about it.

In Dia De Los Padres, Frida was doing a puppet show with puppets that look like Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd also in Animales, it was the same thing like Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry.

In Golden Eagle Twins, when the old woman from the orphanage talks, in the background an orphan is seen playing with an El Tigre plushie.

In production order Love ans War/Wrong and Dance is episode 17, instead of The Good, The Bad and the Tigre.

In No Boots, No Belt, No Brero, all the known characters make cameos.

In No Boots, No Belt, No Brero, several villains can be seen cheering after the Riveras have defeated all their enemies, but a second later those same villains can be seen lying in the heap of defeated enemies.

In No Boots, No Belt, No Brero, it is revealed the Suarez family has a cat.

In Mech Daddy, when El Tigre is electrocuted and his skeleton is visible, you can see his tail has bones.

During the battle against the Titanium Titan, Frida discovers that a giant robot's controller is an NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) controller with the crosspad and the A and B buttons.

In one episode it is revealed that Frida's goggles are "perscription".

Frida appears to spend more time with the Rivera family than with her own family.

Whenever someone is about to do something they will say, "This I swear!".

The animation of this show is also used on Cartoon Network's Mad, though the characters themselves don't appear in some sketchess

Notes

Also at Comic-Con, Jorge Gutierrez said the concept of the show is partly based on his real life growing up in Mexico with an artist father and a grandfather who was in the military. He had seen his grandfather as "evil" and his father as "good", much like Manny's father and grandfather.